Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Do you hear what I hear? Waa-waaaah! for the music industry

“Young people today don’t buy music anymore,” said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Wedge Partners. The numbers agree. According to Nielsen's annual wrap-up of the music industry, digital music sales fell last year for the first time ever, by 6 percent, as the music business inches closer to an access-over-ownership model. Overall streaming (which includes digital radio) is up 32 percent to 118 billion song streams in 2013. On-demand streaming (e.g. pick and click a song on Spotify) doubled last year.

Spotify is amazing. I can't think of a single reason not to have it on your devices unless you simply don't care for music. If not too good to be true, then it's certainly too good to last -- the free version, anyway. S[potify -- as well as YouTube song streaming -- has made me and my family part of this perilous trend. Direct music purchases have probably never been a smaller portion of our family's budget.

Posted at 06:40:23 PM

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I found a few eyelashes and a broken toothpick; assembling a violin now.

But what you said. Between Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, internet radio, etc, I don't know who is buying music anymore.

So, how are musicians going to support themselves in ten or fifteen years? I'm not talking about the Kanye Wests and Ladies Gaga, but the musical 99 percent, as it were.

And I'm not introducing a polemic or even any constructive ideas. Hopefully some economic model will evolve, and maybe is starting to, that will keep all that music coming. I'm not well enough versed in the economics of Tune Biz to know.

(The fact that all of us consume music and hardly any of us seem to make music any more--I know you're an exception, EZ--is a whole other depressing topic.)

"Direct music purchases have probably never been a smaller portion of our family's budget."

I get it, but I also assume you get that musicians have to make a living somehow. So, no complaining when your fav song or grooviest artist sells his soul to some brand for a commercial. And I would hope you buy a T-shirt every now and then.

"So, how are musicians going to support themselves in ten or fifteen years?"

Through touring and merchandising, as many do now. The pure studio musicians will struggle.

I agree with EZ that Spotify (and others such as Rhapsody) are amazing. For $10 a month -- less than the cost of one CD -- I can access just about every song I would ever want to hear (and tens of millions more that I haven't heard before) in brilliant quality through my Sonos system at home or through my iPhone on the road.

"Do musicians and artists not get any of the proceeds of the streaming music?"

They do, but the programs vary by service and other factors. Many if not most artists will say the royalties are hardly a pittance. Then again, the old business model of the music business has been crumbling for some times, and many artists are hardly sad to see the dominance of the labels fade.

That's where merchandise, touring and what use to be called "selling out" come in--they are, in general, the main sources of revenue for those artists these days.

I am NOT trying to toot the horn of the guilt train on this. Streaming music is great, and it's what consumers clearly want. (And the major traditional labels so often were just EVIL.) But it's nice just to keep in mind, at least, how our favorite artists do make a living--and not everyone is a huge star like, say, Taylor Swift (almost puked typing her name) or Metallica (a huge earner for a few decades now)---and perhaps consider supporting them in other ways, if you really like them.

For most of the musicians we like, I would say, making a living remains difficult.

Agreed Vise77. Most of the CDs I own were purchased at live shows at smaller clubs or fests, where the show was reasonably priced and the acts were far better than the popular acts that were charging much more for concerts at larger venues. I get some music and memorablia from the show, often signed by the musicians. They get gas money and motivation to come back. Even though I can now access their music for free, I still try to do this as often as I can.

"Even though I can now access their music for free, I still try to do this as often as I can."

I try to, but probably not enough, so--at the least--I have redefined my view of what it means for a band or musician to sell out. I hope more of my fellow music fans will follow--to be fair, those who follow the industry already have. It also helps to have musicians as friends, I suppose.

I can't help but want to contribute more given how much music means to me. But I am too old and tired to go to as many concerts as was the case. Sigh. I do buy most of my music from iTunes instead of stealing it, but iTunes can rip off musicians, too.

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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.